The UMass Amherst Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies hosts a daylong symposium honoring the work of James Young, Distinguished Professor emeritus of English and Judaic and Near Eastern studies and founding director of the institute.
The symposium, “Edges, Textures, Stages: James Young and the Field of Memory Studies,” will be followed by a reception until 6:30 p.m. The symposium and reception are free and open to the public.
Young, an important figure in the field of memory studies, taught at UMass Amherst from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He also has consulted with municipal agencies in developing memorials and was a jury member for the National 9/11 Memorial competition.
He is the author of “Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust,” “The Texture of Memory,” “At Memory’s Edge: After-images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture,” and “The Stages of Memory: Reflections on Memorial Art, Loss, and the Spaces Between.”
The symposium will feature panel talks by visiting scholars, including:
- Lawrence Douglas, James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College and author of “The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial”
- Alice M. Greenwald, president and chief executive officer of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum
- Debórah Dwork, Rose Professor of Holocaust History, founding director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University and co-author of “Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946” and “Auschwitz”
- Horst Hoheisel, sculpture artist and designer of “counter-monuments” such as “The Crushed Brandenburg Gate”
- Laura Levitt, professor of religion, Jewish studies and gender at Temple University and author of “American Jewish Loss after the Holocaust”
- Samuel Kassow, Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College and author of “Who will Write our History: Emanuel Ringelblum and the Oyneg Shabes Archive”
Exhibition of Photographs by Vincent Giordano.
The photographs are part of a multi-media archive, created by Giordano, who died in 2010, that was sponsored by International Survey of Jewish Monuments and in 2019 will find a new home at the Hellenic American Project and Special Collections at the Library of Queens College, New York.
Giordano’s photographs document two related communities of Greek Romaniote Jews – in Ioannina, in northwestern Greece and on Broome Street on New York’s Lower East Side. Romaniote Jews trace their religious and cultural heritage to the Judaism of the ancient Greco-Roman world two-thousand years ago, and these two tiny congregations are among the few remaining to follow these traditions. Romaniotes have their own liturgy and cultural traditions, as well as their own language, a dialect of Greek that combines words and phrases from Hebrew and Turkish. This luminous black and white photo essay includes a poignant exploration of liturgy and ritual, conveying how people engage with religious space and carry on their time-honored sacred traditions.
The exhibition will open on Thursday, September 19th , 2019 at 6:00 p.m. it will continue through October 3rd, 2019.
A panel discussion by experts will take place at the Consulate on Wednesday, September 25th, 2019 at 6:00 p.m.
Lecture and panel discussion about Romaniote Jews, linked to the exhibition “Romaniote Memories – A Jewish Journey from Ioannina, Greece to Manhattan: Photographs by Vincent Giordano.”
The Duomo & The Great Synagogue: An Evening of Italian Culture
An evening of Jewish and Florentine architecture, culture, music, and food.
• Informal talks about the history and architecture of two of Florence, Italy’s grandest and most iconic structures — the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral (the Duomo) and the Great Synagogue — by Ross King, author of the national bestseller Brunelleschi’s Dome, and noted scholar Professor Francesco Spagnolo, Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley.
• Q&A session moderated by Gail Price, former Executive Director of The American Institute of Architects Santa Clara Valley Chapter.
•The San Jose Chamber players with Cantor Sharon Bernstein presenting both Jewish and Italian songs.
• Italian appetizers and ice cream.
A lecture by architectural historian Dr. Ulrich Knufinke.
The lecture is part of jubilee events marking the 25th anniversary of the reestablishment of the Jewish community in Emmendingen. Seating is limited due to coronavirus measures.
The lecture examines the history of synagogue architecture in Germany and focuses in particular on those buildings that were built after the Holocaust. Their often remarkable, even challenging design raises the question of what role synagogues play today in the image of our cities.
Ulrich Knufinke is an architectural historian and monument conservator. For many years he was a research assistant at the Bet Tfila – Research Center for Jewish Architecture in Europe at the Technical University of Braunschweig. He currently holds the professorship for architectural history at the TU Braunschweig and works at the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation.
Click here for details about the jubilee events
A series of lectures, mostly dealing with synagogue architecture, is being held to mark the 25th anniversary of the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Emmendingen, Germany.
Except for the first lecture (October 12) they are being held at the Simon-Veit-Haus, Kirchstraße 11.
See program below:
A series of lectures, mostly dealing with synagogue architecture, is being held to mark the 25th anniversary of the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Emmendingen, Germany.
Except for the first lecture (October 12) they are being held at the Simon-Veit-Haus, Kirchstraße 11.
See program below:
A series of lectures, mostly dealing with synagogue architecture, is being held to mark the 25th anniversary of the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Emmendingen, Germany.
Except for the first lecture (October 12) they are being held at the Simon-Veit-Haus, Kirchstraße 11.
See program below:
A series of lectures, mostly dealing with synagogue architecture, is being held to mark the 25th anniversary of the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Emmendingen, Germany.
Except for the first lecture (October 12) they are being held at the Simon-Veit-Haus, Kirchstraße 11.
See program below:
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